NAB Digital’s Marc du Plessis reports back on Dallas conference

Themed ‘National Brands, Local Marketing’, attendees from around the world congregated in Dallas recently at the BIA/Kelsey National hosted retail conference. NAB Digital’s General Manager, Marc du Plessis brought home the top line insights.

“National Local is receiving a lot of attention at the moment – the importance of localised advertising is being stressed more and more in international marketing circles because local builds power for national brands, retailers and multi-location business.” says Marc.

Through the conference speakers, delegates learned how brands, franchises and multi-location businesses are building local strategies to successfully drive consumer engagement and revenue.

“One of the most prominent key points raised is that the time is now for National Local, but the industry still needs to catch up. BizHive’s Dave Walker cited CMO Council research noting that 57% of CMOs say that local programmes are important, but only 7% of CMOs have a successful programme in place.”

Another key point raised was the importance of social media in the marketing mix. It was cited that the average Facebook user is online 41 minutes a day, and that national brands should be using social media to develop real scale for local franchises. The debate that was raised, however, was about whether or not to have individual franchises running their social media platforms for local relevance, or ‘head office’ controlling each platform on a tight rein.

The rise of programmatic advertising was also touched on. It was reported that this platform represents a breakthrough for National Local. Automated selling needs to reach users on a targeted, hyper-local basis, but needs to be carefully handled. “Location targeting, especially in mobile advertising is becoming increasingly important and even more effective, by cleverly tying up Geo-proximity with creative messaging.” says Marc.

For multi-location businesses – Location is now the new local, but location itself is being redefined constantly. Location now means where the consumer is in their personal journey to purchase, and how local marketing can facilitate that journey”